Strasbourg court

The European Court of Human Rights in a judgment on Thursday said Romania and Lithuania had violated the European prohibition on torture, and ordered them to pay 100,000 euros in damages each to two terrorism suspects who were detained and tortured in CIA jails in the countries.

A record 462,000 euros will have paid by Bulgaria to the owners of one of the most beautiful houses in the Old Town of Plovdiv - Pavlova or Blue house. This was decided by the Strasbourg court in the Chinggelan and Others versus Bulgaria case, Attorney Mikhail Ekdemjiev, who was the seventh applicant before the European Court of Human Rights, told Sega.

A Council of Europe working group and the Turkish Justice Ministry met in the capital Ankara between Sept. 7 and 8 to discuss the issue of freedom of speech and fight against terrorism in the country, the council said in a statement on Sept. 8.

A German publishing group filed a complaint to the European Court of Human Rigths (ECHR) over jailed German-Turkish journalist Deniz Yücel's case. 

The German publisher WeltN24 has accused Turkey of violating Yücel's right to freedom of expression, Die Welt reported on Aug. 5. 

Bulgaria does not belong in the ranking of the leading countries in terms of both the number of filed complaints and the number of lost cases for violations of the European Convention on Human Rights and Basic Freedoms, announced the press centre of the Prosecutor's Office, citing a report of the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.

The Supreme Court decided on Monday to close its case on the killings of the protesters during an anti-government rally on January 21, 2011, when several other demonstrators were also wounded when Republican Guard troops opened fire.

But the families of the four victims told Albanian media that they are not going to abandon their efforts to find justice.

Albania's government hopes new legislation will halt further rulings by the European Human Rights Court in favour of former landowners, which have obliged it to pay them large amounts of financial compensation.

Daily Kathimerini reports that the Greek Radical Left Coalition (SYRIZA) government must decide whether it wants to take legal recourse for the return of the Parthenon Marbles from the British Museum. A confidential memo sent to the Ministry of Culture by three global lawyers of the Doughty Street Chambers encourages Greece to take the UK to court over the sculptures.

Chatitze Molla Sali, aged 65, is the first woman from Greece's Muslim minority to have disputed sharia law that stripped her part of her inheritance by taking her case to the European Court of Human Rights.

Six complaints from five prisoners have been united in one trial, Neshkov et al. against Bulgaria, which indicates that the Strasbourg court intends to review Bulgaria's poor prison conditions as a systemic problem, Bulgarian National Radio reported.